[Skip]

Originally Posted by n8xwb

The problem (I believe) with plugging the freezer into a GFCI plug in the garage is that that circuit is protecting your outdoor outlets. It tripping may have nothing to do with lightning but everything to do with rain getting an outside outlet wet, or something plugged in outside wet! If you don't have an electric golf cart, that plug will work great for your freezer. If you have an electric cart, try using one of the GFCI circuits for the golf cart. If you don't have much else on the circuit, it should work fine and if it trips in a storm it's no big deal.

That's the answer. One or more of the outside outlets on that GFCI circuit is tripping in the rain. I would replace all those (maybe 3-5 outside outlets) and put new weather seals and covers on the outside outlets. I would also replace the GFCI outlet that gets tripped in case that has a problem. That'll fix the false tripping.

We had a small freezer plugged into a garage outlet and it went off. Problem was the plug got dislodged. What a mess. So now we tie the plug into the socket so it can't be knocked out accidentally.

Skip

[Skip]

Originally Posted by DangeloInspections

Another solution is to install a battery powered "Freezer alarm" on your freezer. They cost less than $20 on amazon. If the GFCI trips and the temp starts to go up this alarm will start beeping.

Hope this helps! Frank D.

Great idea!

Skip

[snbrafford]

You should be able to plug a freezer into any plug unless there is a problem with freezer and it is drawing too many amps for the circuit. Usually this occurs when the unit starts. I suspect you have either 15 or 20 amp circuits in your house which is normal.

I had a problem with just a regular plug in my house that would trip the breaker when using a vacuum cleaner. I had the breaker (not the plug) replaced with one of the same amps. Breakers do wear out. Just in case, while you have an electrician there, replace the plug as well.

[Shutterbug]

Originally Posted by Pairadocs

Have new upright freezer coming in another week. Had old one plugged into outlet in garage but.... the outlet was one that "trips" (??) at any lightening strike, or power interruption, and a red light comes on and no power until you manually push the light "off" and then the outlet will work again. Of course this created a nightmare for the freezer... unlike in the house, where things come back ON after a power interruption, this outlet will not. So, the questions are:

.Can a freezer be plugged into any outlet in the garage ?

. Can this outlet that "trips off" be changed to NOT do that ?

. Does a freezer need a special kind of outlet like a stove ? HD website "seems" to say refrigerators and freezers do NOT need any kind of special outlet ?

. 1 outlet in our garage has sprinkler system, one on ceiling has only door opener, and then there are three others, one of which is the one that has to be reset of power goes off, so we are looking for a better solution for the new freezer... don't want to loose everything again because we aren't here to reset the outlet if the power goes out !

You said there are other outlets in the garage. Place the freezer near one of those. I use the outlet that the sprinkler system is plugged into. If needed, get a heavy duty extension cord.

[Irish Sissy]

I have one in my garage with no issues

[butlerism]

OMG.
I have been waiting for this one to pop up.

I am an electrical engineer.

Your house is not wired to code.

Now your outlets. If wired like mine ( this took me a while to figure out)......

1- Look at your breaker panel, there is one outlet labeled GFCI. note it.
2- that breaker feeds one primary GFCI outlet in your garage (mine is at the interior of the garage behind the master bath, maybe even feeds the master bath outlets too... have not looked that far yet).
3- Here is the code violation. In my home it feeds all the exterior outlets and the garage outlets.
Two out back. Two in Front. Three in the garage. One in the garage ceiling..... and ohhhh yes the lamp pole out front.

CODE VIOLATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Change these two items of concern The breaker and primary GFCI outlet.
Definitely a very hokey way to wire a home.

I am assuming the Villages developer hires idiots and wires the homes this way. It is wrong.
My breaker was fine, but with every heavy rain the primary GFCI outlet would trip. Took me a bit to figure out.

The developer makes a small assumption. Your are not running much on this string.
Most of us do not have a plethora of electronics we are plugging in outside or in the garage.
Wake up call. The battery charger for my golf cart just about takes up all the amperage on full charge mode that the primary GFCI can pass thru. Bring ln the rain..... TRIP!!!!

Do not get me started on the three way outlets wired from the front door switches.
I have a light at my entry inside, but noooo I need a switch at the front door to power up the lower half of an outlet at the rear of my house.

WTF

I was walking around my house for a while saying.... what the heck does this switch control?????

[Cmacnair@hotmail.com]

Most of the breakers in the garage are 15 amp. Look to see how many device’s are plugged into the circuit that keeps tripping. See how mini amps your freezer draws when it first starts. Take the amount of amps that your freezer draws add that to the other devices amps to get a total amount of amps that’s being drawn on your 15 amp circuit. If it’s more than 15 Amp’s then you need split amount of Devices that you were running amongst other circuits. Some GFI plugs get weak after they’ve been tripped several times and the GFI plug may need to be replaced. When an electric motor first starts it draws more amps than it does when it’s running. If you have had a total power outage then when the power comes back on and you have a GFI plug that needs to be reset constantly it could be that when everything is starting at one time it’s blowing the GFI. The way to correct that is if you have a total house outage and you have that problem then just unplug some of the things that are in that circuit and then bring them back online one at a time. If you travel a lot just put the freezer on a separate circuit.

[Koapaka]

After having our garage fridge go out after the GFI got tripped and we were not home, we just bought a simple, cheap nightlight kind of light detecting device and plugged it into a GFI outlet that is on the same circuit as the on the garage fridge is plugged into. The normal light that comes on with the sensor in the evenings is a soft blue light, but IF the power is out, it goes to a white light (and is not dusk to dawn but constant white)....that has saved us since. We got a package of like 6 of them at Sam's club for cheap and have placed the others in hallways/bathrooms for power outages and soft lighting at night. Money well spent. Also, SOME insurance companies will reimburse you for food spoilage up to a certain amt (USAA has a $500 cap) for just such incidents. Had no idea until a friend told us to check with them on it, so perhaps sharing this info will help someone else with such issues.

[butlerism]

Ohhhhh.

Follow on.

Your Sprinklers are, if like mine, on their own branch circuit. So that may be a second issue.

As for your Freezer. Look at your breaker box and see if you have any spare (blanks) circuits. My box has zero. Hence wiring everything up under the Sun on one branch.

Get an electrician if you have open blanks to run a dedicated branch for that freezer (best method.. recommended). This can be done quite easily using metallic conduit..... direct..... no need to break into the walls
If you keep a lot of food, buy a quality UPS for the freezer, it will mitigate power surges and keep the freezer going for the short term , most presumably power will return shortly and all will be good.

Your freezer. It's motor does not like power spikes. It will just short out and stop working.



K

[butlerism]

Terminology.

The Electrical box contains circuit breakers..

This box feeds branch circuits ( every breaker) which contain outlets and lighting circuits (switches).
The key word is outlets.

A "plug" is the thing at the end of a cord you "plug" into an outlet.
Hence the word "plug".

Want to turn off an electrician.... tell them you have an issue with your "plug".

They will tell you buy a new appliance.

[Malsua]

Originally Posted by butlerism

Two out back. Two in Front. Three in the garage. One in the garage ceiling..... and ohhhh yes the lamp pole out front.

CODE VIOLATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>>SNIP<<


Wake up call. The battery charger for my golf cart just about takes up all the amperage on full charge mode that the primary GFCI can pass thru. Bring ln the rain..... TRIP!!!!

What code is the above violating? There is no NEC limit on the number or placement of outlets. There is a soft limit of 80% of the expected load, but we're talking outlets here, not definable loads like a fridge. There is no issue co-mingling a lighting fixture branch with an outlet circuit either.

As to tripping a GFCI when there is rain, you've got a compromised outlet somewhere.

To the original poster...

As others have stated, under NEC2017, all outlets in the garage are required to be GFCI. Arc faults are not required in the Garage, so count your blessings.

Modern refrigerators are much better than older ones due to better motors and efficiency, at least when it comes to living on a GFCI protected circuit.

Also as others have stated, I would swap the outlet. They do go bad.

I'm also going to engage in some heresy here, but I had a small freezer(drew about 4 amps) on a AFCI/GFCI combination breaker that would trip once in a while during heavy, wind and rain. It was not the freezer's fault, it was a faulty outdoor light fixture that I ultimately replaced.

When we were away before I isolated the problem, I ran a heavy gauge extension cord to a circuit on a standard breaker, just so that we didn't come back to a freezer full of rotting meat.

[Blueblaze]

GFCI's are more sensitive to sudden loads than normal receptacles and the startup load of a freezer coming on often trips them, especially if they're old (either one, the freezer or the recep). You might be able to solve the problem by simply replacing the GFCI recep.

One way to get the freezer off the GFCI is to find the next farther recep in the circuit and swap receps to move the GFCI recep there. The rest of the circuit from that point on will still be protected from ground faults, but the GFCI won't see the startup amperage from the freezer, and it will quit tripping.

But then the problem will be determining how to wire the GFCI recep. The "line" and "load" wires must be attached correctly to make sure the rest of the receps on the circuit are GFCI protected. You'll need a circuit tester or volt meter to determine this, which means handling a live circuit. I would recommend getting an electrician to do this, but you might have trouble finding one. The code technically requires all ordinary receps in the garage to be GFCI-protected. An electrician may require that you let them install a dedicated circuit without a GFCI, which the code allows specifically for this case of a dedicated single appliance circuit in a garage. This will be much more expensive, although it's obviously the best solution.

The cheapest solution is to try replacing the GFCI recep. Just be careful to insure that the circuit breaker is off (test it, don't rely on the label) and be careful to attach the same wire to the same lugs on the new recep. If that doesn't work, it's time to call an electrician.

And keep in mind, so long as that freezer is on a GFCI, there is always the possibility that something ELSE on the circuit can trip the GFCI, causing the freezer to lose power. That's why the dedicated circuit is the best solution.

[thevillages2013]

Originally Posted by dp000

I had the same problem, call an electrician and he told me that Florida code would no allow an independent line to be put in the garage, must be hooked up to a gfi

Well that is strange because Pike Electric one of the largest in TV ran a dedicated receptacle for a customer of mine in Woodbury a couple years ago in the garage for his refrigerator

[TransStar]

Just an fyi, when you have that type of outlet it good for five years max. Combine that with the outdoor elements, just replace it. It's so easy to fix.

[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by TransStar

Just an fyi, when you have that type of outlet it good for five years max. Combine that with the outdoor elements, just replace it. It's so easy to fix.

Or 20 years and counting in my house up north

Or 7 years and counting in my TV house